30 KiB
[RT][WIP] Worth the Candle, ch 71 (The Soul of Discretion)
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Author: u/cthulhuraejepsen Fruit flies like a banana*
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URL: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/30920958
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Score: 113
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Created: 2018-01-26T08:07:40
Post:
Comments:
u/sparkc [+25] (3 hours later)
Curious that Juniper didn’t correct his lie about his lost skill in essentialism to Amarylis, even after Grak was unable to overhear and even after she commented on not liking being ‘left out of the loop’.
u/WalterTFD [+22] (5 hours later)
I feel like there might be a minor 'bounceback' from the Tower of Probity, where he is now inclined towards Eeeevil for a little while. Pointless lying, etc.
u/Keshire [+4] (12 hours later)
Sounds plausible. Like when someone opens a door you've been pushing on and you stumble a few steps before you regain your balance.
u/nytelios [+6] (9 hours later)
Joon's spontaneous lie was interesting. I imagine that it could even be a complex reflex: resenting Amaryllis' oversight over his abilities, feeling guilty and wanting to ease Amaryllis' certain discomfort over having her soul and privacy bared at Joon's whim, the DM giving a subconscious nudge to spice the narrative up (that's terrifying) or, assuming Grak is compromised, dispensing the Luck-y slip as a result of Joon's "augmented mind" rolling high. There are a few worrying signs in Joon's mental dialogue lately.
u/GMan129 [+4] (a day later)
i think mary's had her soul messed with. i think the comment about how her distrust of faletehr was even higher than he'd expect is because faletehr fucked with it to avoid suspicion to cover up for something else faletehr did. im worried that juniper not telling her that he had evidence for grak being compromised resulted in her letting her guard down and grak set her up.
but that's all just from a weird sense of foreboding i get from the way the characters are interacting
u/TempAccountIgnorePls [+2] (9 hours later)
Someone messing with his soul maybe?
u/icesharkk [+2] (3 days later)
oh jesus christ.... He let a soul mage (the lizard guy) touch him while he had a ) in sould magic!! how did it take me till now to realize the implications!
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+23] Fruit flies like a banana (7 minutes later)
It's been a while since I've done a summary, but:
From the age of nine, Juniper Smith began filling notebooks with his worlds, at first places of fantastical imagination, but later with each as an expression of some theme or idea that momentarily grabbed his interest. Over the course of eight years, he shared these worlds with his friends through twice-weekly sessions of tabletop gaming. Now at the age of seventeen, he finds himself in Aerb, a world that appears to be an amalgam of those many notebooks, stuck trying to find the answers to why he's there and what this world is trying to say. The most terrifying answer might be that this world is an expression of the person he was back on Earth.
You can read the full work on one page here, but it's so long now that I kind of don't recommend that if you're starting from the beginning.
It's late where I am, and I feel like I had something to say about the nature of web serials, or maybe this one in specific, and then maybe a thing about the intimate relationship between a creator and his work, but I can't remember what it was, and I think it might have been too serious, so I'm posting this and then going to bed.
u/Cifems [+27] (2 hours later)
the intimate relationship between a creator and his work
Well then, if you're not gonna, then let me say something as an ardent fan.
A good while back, you were using the term 'self-insert' to describe your work... which I'm sure, turned off a lot of potential readers (including me). At least until the constant threads in this subreddit tipped us off that there might be something worthwhile here.
So I'd like to ask... why'd you use to call it a "self-insert"? I think the common understanding of an SI is some sort of Mary-sue-ish Original Character^TM thrust into an existing canon, often with god-like powers and suddenly the whole world revolves around... okay, I might be answering my own question.
In that case, I ask this because, imho, Juniper is not... a happy person. The little vignettes back to Bumblefuck are my favourite part of the story; funny and depressing and poignant. And I hope your life has been happier than Juniper's.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+18] Fruit flies like a banana (14 hours later)
I think this video sums up a lot of my thoughts on self-inserts pretty well. Self-inserts get a bad rap, mostly because a lot of people do them poorly. Same goes for portal fantasy, and to some extent, litRPGs, and a few other ideas or genres that Worth the Candle uses.
Part of the problem with trying to do these things well is that a lot of people will just see the tag or description and then move on, but the other end of that problem is that if you try to hide any of it, you might lose people when they figure things out. It's also kind of annoying when people will try to move the goalposts for what a thing is because of their preconceived notions and the way we like to place labels on categories. (The definition of "science fiction" and "fantasy" vary a lot based on who you ask, but it's pretty common for the definition to be crafted such that a select few high-quality, socially acceptable books or movies will fall outside it.)
So part of the reason that the original description was like that is that I wanted to be unapologetic about what kind of story this was. I do still want to be unapologetic (and think I still am) but the problem was that the original description didn't actually give you any idea of what the story was, beyond the collection of tropes and genres it contained. Part of not trying to hide the nature of the work is also because I hate the signaling game of "I'm going to distance myself from these other works because I think I'm better than them", and partly it's because I think it's useful to select against people who are inclined to dismiss the things that are in your story -- if I were writing a superhero story, I wouldn't want to waste anyone's time by disguising that fact until the third chapter, where they would promptly put it down.
As for happiness ... I would say that I'm generally happy now, but I wasn't a happy person from about as early as I can remember until an age older than Juniper is.
u/GaBeRockKing [+16] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (9 hours later)
The term "SI" has slightly different connotations in fanfic communities like Ao3. When a story explicitly sells itself as being an SI, readers take that to mean "portal fantasy, with someone from our timeline in [fantasy world] who may or may not have read the book that contains [fantasy world.]" WtC follows that conciet-- a portal fantasy where the main character knows about the world he's going into. The fact that the MC is based off of the author is almost incidental-- SI OCs (an original character following the conventions of a self insert) are almost as, if not more, common that straight SIs.
u/renegadeduck [+3] picky but enthusiastic (9 hours later)
The little vignettes back to Bumblefuck are my favourite part of the story; funny and depressing and poignant.
Totally agree.
Tangent: I wonder if calling it “Bumblefuck” indicates that Earth isn't real in this story?
u/CopperZirconium [+4] (20 hours later)
My headcannon is that Bumblefuck is the sister-city to Shittown.
u/abcd_z [+3] (a day later)
The residents pronounce it "shitten".
u/Takashoru [+2] (17 days later)
Semi-related: two people I recommend fiction to dropped WtC because they found the use of the name "Bumblefuck" jarring and unenjoyable.
I'm fine with it, but it's interesting the things that some people pick up on.
u/elevul [+2] Cyoria Observer (16 hours later)
Any chance of having an epub?
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+6] Fruit flies like a banana (18 hours later)
Ao3 provides them, you can click the "Download" button which should be in the upper-right corner, and then select EPUB. Or clicking this link should do it too.
There's a slight problem in that the epub doesn't properly format the character sheets that show up about five times in the text, but I think those can safely be skipped, since most of the information they provide is redundant.
u/elevul [+2] Cyoria Observer (a day later)
Thank you!
u/SatelliteFool [+21] (2 hours later)
I'm glad Juniper is confronting his habit of rationalising negative behaviour. That was becoming a concern.
u/nytelios [+17] (9 hours later)
I just realized that Fenn, through Symbiosis, will also be able to use soul magic and see Joon's soul (it's two way presumably). I wonder what a relationship would look like if both sides had such intimacy constantly at their fingertips.
And if or when Amaryllis gets it...that'd be bizarre.
u/derefr [+5] (a day later)
Given the discussion about back-channels at the end of this chapter, Joon+co turning their own (soon-to-be-)mutually-visible character sheets into a BBS seems like an inevitability.
u/jaghataikhan [+2] Primarch of the White Scars (2 days later)
BBS?
u/derefr [+3] (2 days later)
Bulletin Board System. "Group chatroom" might have been more modern of me, but has connotations of push-notifying, whereas BBSes needed to be logged into and checked.
u/adgnatum [+10] (a day later)
The Interdict of Merlin comes to mind.
If teaching is the process of turning verbal descriptions and firsthand demonstrations into the corresponding procedural ability, then resetting the skill revokes that ability but also poisons the insight.
Juniper was able to convey the knowledge of soul magic, even while his skill was compromised, through uncompromised Fenn.
Perhaps other imprisoned soul mages were well aware of how a single soul mage could run amok, especially someplace like a prison, and were therefore unable to cooperate in a variant of prisoner's dilemma? A defection is catastrophic, as we have seen.
Or maybe the teaching needs to come from someone whose skill is not removed. Subclaim: 'removed' is more severe than 'nonexistent' or 'locked'. Other prisoners could not help each other. Subclaim: ex-soul mages were only imprisoned together.
There could be a more local explanation for the observations in this chapter. Suppose Fallatehr compromised Juniper's memory of his own training, but Fenn's retelling managed to be different enough to work. Then the analogy between Juniper's reset and the other skill removals is no longer so applicable.
Or perhaps the original training was self-defeating in some way, like trying to learn the HPMOR again (or more generally having learned a more precise abstraction).
u/sicutumbo [+23] (6 hours later)
“And I’m Captain Not-a-Soul-Mage, endowed with the awesome power of being able to not be a soul mage,” I replied, smiling to myself.
“You are so lucky you’re cute,” replied Fenn.
From Fenn's perspective, this must seem really whiny. "Oh no, I just lost two days of work on soul magic. Now I'll have to spend an entire afternoon relearning it to a level that most people spend years to get to, with nothing else to fall back on but all the other schools of magic I know and my nearly inhuman sword fighting skills. How will I ever survive?"
Also, has Fenn tried using magic? She should be able to use some spells while close to Joon.
u/renegadeduck [+13] picky but enthusiastic (9 hours later)
She was able to produce a flame via blood magic.
u/ketura [+11] Organizer (9 hours later)
Normally I'd agree with you, but that's two days of intel and preparation that Fallatehr has that Joon has now lost his corresponding progress against.
u/Jokey665 [+1] Worth the Candle (9 hours later)
Yeah how exactly does all that soulbondy stuff work? Juniper should also be godly with a bow now right?
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+4] Mouse Army (12 hours later)
Fenn has XL 56 Bows I think. XL 23 for June is not godly, but a solid decade of training maybe.
u/Jokey665 [+6] Worth the Candle (12 hours later)
is it supposed to be half? wouldn't it be 28 then?
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+5] Mouse Army (12 hours later)
Duh. Sure, I cant math right now.
u/xachariah [+17] (22 hours later)
It's interesting that Juniper is able to rationalize away the implications of Goodly so easily.
Juniper seems cognizant that he's neutral. 300k+ words in, 71 chapters, and he's never helped a single person other than his party, except the one time he tried to save a woman so he could clear his cowardice debuff, but he's also done nothing evil. Pretty textbook RPG neutral.
Meanwhile Fenn is a literal career criminal, murderer, and a kleptomaniac. She was in jail and got released from jail to go on a suicide mission. She steals from stores for fun and wants to murder the person they rescued from prison, not because he's dangerous (which would be understandable), but because she just really hates him.
Jun goes into the tower of good and feels influenced and diminished; that's a far cry from being unaffected or even enhanced like a truly good person would, but it's not too shabby. Meanwhile, Fenn goes into the tower and feels terrified, practically locked down with disgust and horror. Fenn was impacted way more than what happened to Jun (as he said, he wouldn't have even noticed it without the HUD), but Jun just ignores it.
I guess it's because he's in love. That's probably what anyone would do when faced with a reality that contains demonstrable and objective proof that the person they love is evil.
u/dalitt [+6] (a day later)
The fact that the tower has a moral philosophy which it calls good, and the power to enforce that moral philosophy, doesn't mean that its moral beliefs are objectively correct. I think it's fairly clear that the DM is not "good" in any standard sense -- why should we take the game's claims about good at face value? This is a version of the Euthyphro dilemma.
u/xachariah [+2] (a day later)
What this world is defining as 'objective morally good' seems to line up with what Juniper believes is morally good.
Yes, there are unanswered questions about this world's metaphysics, but on the subject of morality that seems like an unimportant difference with respect to Jun.
u/dalitt [+7] (a day later)
I don't think that's right -- Juniper explicitly claims to be a utilitarian, but the tower seems to be promoting non-utilitarian logic -- indeed, it almost explicitly leads Juniper to the Kantian categorical imperative:
I could feel faith in the goodness of people where no such feeling had been before, and when I questioned that faith, I felt myself thinking that even if others wouldn’t commit to that same level of disclosure, I should be an exemplar of truth, because without someone to step forward, the whole world might get caught in a circular firing squad of defection from good.
u/adgnatum [+6] (a day later)
I could understand responding the same way Juniper did after Fenn explained her feelings about the tower. Her commitment couldn't preserve itself because it wasn't self-generated, but the lingering bad feeling wasn't doing her any favors.
the question of Fenn’s immaturity on both an emotional and social level
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I had thought that I would help her, and she would help me, and we would grow together
I wouldn't say he's blind to her backstory. And as Fenn said, there was limited time to continue the discussion.
I agree that her list of misdeeds is as bad as you say. (Maybe not for wanting to murder Fallatehr, but there's still time for that to happen...) Plenty of games are centered around doing those sorts of things, but this exercise is to take in-universe morality at face value.
Knowing what we do about Aerb's elves and their emphasis on perfection, I doubt they spent time debating moral philosophy. "Playing devil's advocate" is an alarming turn of phrase on Aerb; its meaning would also be alarming to a (conventional) elf.
This is not to say that they were always morally perfect agents*. Fenn probably wasn't exposed to that sort of discussion from the elves, and even if she was I imagine they seemed hypocritical, considering her own experiences.
In this context, Juniper's explanation seems accurate, not rationalized. Unlike a lot of similar advice in fiction, it's also actionable. Maybe this isn't where the story is going, but Fenn could have those discussions too. Maybe this is part of how her arc proceeds. (And perhaps Valencia's also?)
What's the alternative? She doesn't change, and Juniper does/doesn't realize efforts in that direction are futile? The story gives her a pass to go back to being a career criminal? I don't think so.
Moral self-improvement seems like something Fenn wants, if the conversation is any indication. She's far from irredeemable, and now she's had something of a wake-up call.
*by our standards or otherwise, so throw some in the tower and see what happens
u/xachariah [+5] (a day later)
I'm not quite sure I understand your meaning here. Understanding Juniper's actions is simple enough; I also sympathize with him and would be tempted to act the same way. But I guess after that you're saying that Fenn being evil isn't her fault, and so Juniper should keep acting the same as he was before? If so, I disagree strongly.
- Try to turn her to good? Absolutely.
- Keep her in the party? For sure.
- Keep sleeping with her? Well, don't blame him if he does.
- But just shrug your shoulders and dismiss it? That's crazy.
Knowing someone's alignment is very valuable information in a world with objective morality. Good is better than evil on both a moral level and a practical one, if you've got narrative powers like Jun does. Learning that a party member is evil is quite possibly the most important thing you could ever learn about them.
And what's more, the power of good isn't just an attribute tag or the balance of karma you've done in your life. It demonstrated itself in a pattern of thinking, meaning that Fenn's pattern of thinking is flawed such a way to produce evil into the world. This means that Jun can't have Fenn go donate to charity and kill zombies until she balances out. If good/evil is a way of thinking, then an alignment change means you need to fundamentally rewire who a person is and how they think in order to change them into 'good'.
Although, if you had to change someone into 'good', Juniper does have the tools to fix that... (Would that actually be good? Probably a decision you should only make when under the effect of goodly, just in case.)
u/nytelios [+14] (a day later)
Is Fenn evil? That assumption is shaky if we're going with a D&D alignment system. Joon sees her as chaotic neutral, not evil, and that does seem a better fit. He also speculated that the tower's disproportionately strong effect on her was due to her lack of exposure to internal moral monologue.
Someone said you're the average of who you spend time with, so I'm most excited to see any shifts in behavior and thinking. Wonder whether being soul-bonded in a party exacerbates that kind of homogenizing effect.
u/adgnatum [+1] (a day later)
My point is that I think he knows and isn't ignoring it. I think he already formed the relevant thoughts in Ch 61, near the quotes I pasted. In that sense, there wasn't a big revelation for Juniper in the aftermath of the tower. He already knew who he was
dealingwith.You could argue that the narration's focus hasn't been here, or at least not yet. Maybe this is where it starts. Juniper gave her something of a purpose with the adventure. It hasn't kept her hands clean. (But Amaryllis has some enemies. Maybe it's a bad time to start that discussion.)
There is an objective morality defined by the mechanics of the world, and that's weird. We had a chapter about that.
mildly unpleasant mental fuckery that I wasn’t informed existed on Aerb
I take this as a sign that Fenn isn't one Detect Evil from an NPC riot. (Captain Not-a-Soul-Mage has the greater risk.) The objective morality does not seem well-known. And since the game chose (supplied?) companions, I doubt it will fault Juniper for any of this.
I think the difference between our views is not so great. I wouldn't even deny her fault in this. I think the difference is that you're buying more into the mechanical-morality than I am and you think the game layer will also do so. (This from the game layer that called Goodly an affliction.)
bumming around the Risen Lands looking for loot, where a few years was just a matter of finding yourself, and a decade and a half was more just who you were
I'm not endorsing the attribute/karma/balance approach either. (Do you think Juniper would?) The important thing is, as you say, improving patterns. I think the pattern of Fenn's life was looting exclusion zones, but not that she felt a strong commitment to it. Compared to antagonists with evil goals and motivations, she has plenty of room for chaotic neutral. That seems easier to change.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
[deleted]
u/adgnatum [+1] (2 days later)
Hm, maybe I should check that out.
u/eroticas [+3] (3 days later)
Your points notwithstanding in an "if this were the real world" sense, I'm pretty sure the narrative intends Jun as neutral good, and Fenn as chaotic neutral, Amaryllis as lawful good, Grak as lawful neutral, and fallhater as chaotic evil.
In the real world, humans don't often get much more evil than "purely self interested". Even your average congenitally amoral sociopath combined with poor upbringing usually doesn't cause pain for fun - merely lacks an aversion to causing pain. So our standards for what is "evil" are rather different.
In this world and I think often in DnD fantasy in general, a person who is largely operating on self-interest is neutral. You aren't actually "evil" until you're willing to commit horrible atrocities in the name of that self interest, or worse if you take active pleasure in being malicious. Murdering someone who stands in the way of your objective isn't considered a huge deal to a DnD neutral. This is because DnD is descended from hack and slash medieval fighting games. Real life good people do not frequently engage in combat, and that's because most real life people are good and combat is, as a whole, bad and only acceptable in the name of stopping a greater evil.
Fenn isn't even a sociopath - she doesn't want to hurt people, and will only do so when self interest overrides empathy. In our world, where practically everyone is good at their core, that's as close to evil as most people ever encounter in everyday life. In this world, that's neutral. June, meanwhile, is concerned about random mooks who die. In the real world that's just fucking basic, of course you care about every person that dies. In this world, that makes him an idealistic bleeding heart saint.
u/icesharkk [+1] (3 days later)
theres a good chance fallatehr exacerbated her dislike of him to polarizing levels. that might not be her fault. Joon mentioned his method of stealth soul fuckery this chapter.
Mine would be different, I would exacerbate existing values in seemingly consistent ways to create a more polarized personality. Very, very polarized people react predictably to relevant stimuli. tweak Fenn and wait for her to cause the group to implode by nearly guaranteeing she tries to kill him in a compromised moment.
u/PM_ME_OS_DESIGN [+1] (15 days later)
Juniper
neutral
A utilitarian with an exponential power-amplifier like Juniper, would initially focus on the multiplier, even at the cost of short-term moral losses.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+5] Fruit flies like a banana (a minute later)
Typo thread here, please.
(I do deeply appreciate people finding them and pointing them out.)
u/Ace_Kuper [+5] (9 hours later)
In chapter 67 Fallatehr still knows about Junipers ribs proble for no reason. You wanted to fix it, but might have forgot.
He shrugged. “It was far less work than it had any right to be. Your chest will be more difficult, as it forms the link for your internal organs"
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+14] Fruit flies like a banana (11 hours later)
Okay, (finally) fixed with a small patch to the dialogue in ch 67:
He shrugged. “It was far less work than it had any right to be." He stared at me. "You had inquired about a hypothetical before, how you would deal with a problem without such symmetry to exploit. Not just a hypothetical, if I read you correctly."
"My ribs," I replied. With my hand fixed, I was willing to give him that much.
"All of them?" asked Fallatehr, face blank of expression
"All of them," I confirmed with a nod. I was tempted to offer up some defense of myself, to say that the situation had been desperate, that I hadn't actually had any training as a bone mage beyond what my power gave me, but that was just my instinct toward justifying myself talking, and there was no sense in telling him things he didn't need to know.
Fallatehr seemed to ponder that for a moment. "Your chest will be more difficult, as it forms the link for your internal organs and there is nothing to take from, but from the pace you’ve been keeping, it should only be a matter of days, at which point our primary business will be concluded.”
u/Ace_Kuper [+1] (11 hours later)
Great, i just thougt you would bring it up again at some later point and people will be confused, why Fallatehr knows that.
u/nytelios [+1] (15 hours later)
"All of them?" asked Fallatehr, face blank of expression(.)
u/GeeJo [+5] Custom Flair (21 minutes later)
I’m just along for the ride, and to shoot things when they both you
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+2] Fruit flies like a banana (11 hours later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/Badewell [+3] (31 minutes later)
“She’s clean,” I said as I pulled out. “I take that as a good sign.”
LINEBREAK
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (11 hours later)
Fixed the linebreak, not actually sure what's wrong with that first one?
u/Badewell [+4] (11 hours later)
I was just including that line to show where the linebreak was, the line itself is fine (In retrospect it really wasn't necessary to include at all).
u/sharikak54 [+3] (an hour later)
trying to overload one of the numbers in order to cause engender behaviors that you wouldn’t expect
Also, missing a "him":
She didn’t appear to like, and even her respect for him was pretty meager.
Not sure which "she" is being referred to, you might have meant "we":
“I’ll volunteer for a stint in the glove if we need to make our getaway by soulcycle, but I’m of the opinion that she could just teleport a few continents away.”
Should be "your":
have access to you soul magic anymore
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (11 hours later)
Fixed those, thank you.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+3] Mouse Army (an hour later)
I wasn’t sure what she’d have gotten up [to] since I’d left
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+2] Fruit flies like a banana (11 hours later)
Fixed, thank you.
u/Laborbuch [+3] (3 hours later)
She didn’t seem anger, just curious.
angry (presumably)
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (11 hours later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/nytelios [+1] (9 hours later)
she pulled over to the shoulder (tap?).
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+2] Fruit flies like a banana (11 hours later)
"The shoulder" is just the side of the road, [see here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoulder_(road)).
u/Makin- [+1] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (7 days later)
Typo in chapter 43 "Handrum"
(This story is even better on a reread)
u/Makin- [+6] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (an hour later)
Seems like a transition chapter clearly preparing for action on the next chapter. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a fight against Fallatehr (and Grak?).
Fenn feeling guilty about doing bad things is interesting and maybe it's a boring thing for me to wish for but I can't help but hope it sticks and she's less chaotic neutral in the end.